The next opportunity took me into a world completely different from prison counseling. I became the office manager for a fabrication company. At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much connection between counseling prison inmates and working for a company that fabricated steel equipment. There wasn't. I was changing directions again. But this job gave me something that would become extremely valuable. I began learning how to estimate costs.
Steel, Labor, and Numbers
The company fabricated steel pressure vessels and large storage tanks. Those structures don't simply appear on a shop floor. Someone has to determine what it will take to build them. How much steel will be required? What other materials must be purchased? How much will those materials cost? How many hours of labor will fabrication require? What will that labor cost? And finally: What will it cost us to build this thing? I began learning how to answer those questions. Estimating required more than arithmetic.
You had to understand what was being built. You had to understand materials. You had to understand labor. You had to anticipate what could go wrong. And if your estimate was wrong, the company could discover the mistake after it had already committed itself to doing the work. I was learning a new way of thinking.
Another Education
Looking back, I can see that my education continued long after Lamar handed me a diploma. The prison system had taught me about people and institutions. The fabrication company began teaching me about business. I was learning that every job had a cost. Every hour of labor had a cost. Every piece of material had a cost. And somebody had to put all those pieces together before a company could decide whether a job was worth taking. I was becoming that somebody. I did not realize then how much these experiences were preparing me for a profession. Farm work, music, college, counseling, and now estimating had each taught me something I could use.